You have to see it to believe it.. Sharing & Expressing is the only way to learn I know best

Tag: changing roles

This is how I would like to see this stage as – Consolidating my health, work, personality amongst all priorities.

Work – its going rather well so far (touchwood) with UX & Digital Business responsibilities & got an amazing Boss to interact daily with as a friend, mentor, guide.

Health – Solid effort going in here & do not want this to get impacted in any way. Reduced frame-size, increased strength, stamina, daily workout sessions with right set of positive & vibrant people is extremely helpful.

Personality – I have been wanting to become a more calm, controlled, serene, fewer words, more giving, letting go person for some time now. I am glad to say that I do see with time, people, efforts – things are moving in that direction.

Household responsibilities along with eating habits – This was a major cause of worry in my case as I was quite lazy & careless like a (tom) boy towards this. However with time, effort & people again – I have learnt to take care of these things as they are extremely crucial to lead a happy & balanced life. Now I eat, sleep on time – somehow if I can change the food at office – it will be perfect.

Friends/People/Family – With maturity & experience, I have learnt to appreciate the kind of people I want to have around me while keeping others at bay. Gone are the days when I used to get confused among friends, situations & used to find myself gasping for escape. Glad to have found more solace here – Finding my Man is the only gap waiting to be fulfilled.

My startup/business – Having my own Digital Consultancy is what has come as an ideal solution for me – Let us see if I do this or something else. The school + studio + organic farm + yoga retreat house Dream also awaits. Refinement is awaiting & other pieces waiting to fall into place.

Travel/Photography – This is the only spot I feel am not doing 100% justice to given the amount of travel & clicking I used to do till 1 year back when every week I would just take off locally and every 2-3 months some place out. However, this piece is also getting consolidated now by pushing me into doing only great memorable trips solo or with 1 or 2 people I really wish to be with. Am sure my clicking results have grown & will continue to amaze everyone!

This statement is quite casually put to explain the way India operates to people trying to understand Indian system. Even scientifically a lot of institutions have tried to find justification to the above statement with no consolidated results to showcase so far. But it won’t be wrong to suggest that above statement DOES explain a lot what is wrong and still correct with Indian system. Someone can hear a song – “Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani.. (Still heart is Indian despite everything).

The traffic is the first and perhaps biggest system management representation of how Indians operate, how they flung the rules, how considerate they are towards others. Not to say that everyone is bad or everything happening here is wrong as 1000+ people die everyday in India on road but as the optimist shall say 1crore+ people are saved as well :). The requirement is definitely for making traffic laws and law guardians ie traffic policemen/ladies more empowered – increase their salaries, make them more accountable, train them, help them in becoming no less efficient than an army officer or an investment banker for that matter.

Same can be said for law & order situation in India – the police administration, the judicial system are pillars without which any democracy or country will fail. In India, there are millions of ways of finding loopholes in here to find a way for yourself. A highly functioning country cannot afford to have 1 in 2 policemen who have oodles of pounds added around the tyre region who fail to empathise forget giving help to the needy. Again, a revamp with focus on their basic qualification, aptitude, attitude, fitness, salary structure is in the order.

There have been a few sectors which have seen privatisation post the liberalisation policy of 1992 – Aviation, Telecom/Communication, IT services, Media, Food & Beverages, FMCG, Banking, Pharmaceuticals, Construction/Infrastructure are chief I can recall among others. These sectors have seen practices from abroad coming into implementation, a good level of competition to out do each other, high influx of educated youngsters joining them, consistent growth & contribution towards GDP, certain positioning at international scenario for India.
Not to stress that jobs in these sectors are in high demand at engineering, MBA and other colleges.

My country is great – nobody can deny or takeaway that from me. Am moment and again filled with the optimism for the highest notch that my country can reach. I am also one of those old school people who value the rich culture, family values, history values that my country keeps close to Her heart. Though what is required along with the Govt reforms is change of approach/attitude of my own countrymen/ladies – to not think of themselves first at every opportunity. In public places – think for the public too, while in a queue – keep your patience for others too, while driving or being driven – respect other people’s comforts/lives too.

Today, my country is highest growing nation in the world – its no mean feat achieved basis hard work of countrymen favoured by govt policies. Let us not stop till we are able to provide every single Indian anywhere in the world with clean food to eat, clean water to drink, healthy air to breathe, clothes to cover, shed to protect heads and few other basic amenities along with respect, dignity to withstand anything.

While the whole euphoria around startups, funding, techie demand salary hike is great – I also hear a few voices trying to make some sense of the whole noise. This noise is great almost like RocknRoll, a new culture emission – but how disrupting it can be in an undesirable way also need to be assessed and addressed. So these voices need to be heard and make sense of.

Am all for startups especially technology startups – I did my Btech & MBA with some %of thoughts over starting my own business someday. This phase where people are leaving their corporate jobs for startups is quite encouraging.
Though there are 90-95% of such people who have a sound financial backing in the form of their parents, spouse, savings, etc. So it is a jump but more of a calculated jump which again am not against but just trying to break the myth of the whole daring concept being so great.

Some of them are doing great in terms of generating employment, new business models, creating new desired customized roles, serving customers at large, etc. even though profits remain far fetched.
However I want to draw attention to two aspects which have repetitively been discussed lately :

Food startups going a bust including other Rocket ventures : We have all read about the story of Foodpanda, Eatlo, Freshmenu as well Jabong hitting rock bottom. What do you think went wrong here exactly?

Housing, Tinyowl forced to cut down team sizes in 3 figures : What do you think happens to these fresh kids and their families? How do they feel about startups, founders and these companies?

These two points are some waterfall developments to what a lot of people have felt while working with in these startups including myself.

I again want to reiterate if I have haven’t – the learning is great almost exponential, the ownership is bigger than ever before, the possibilities of doing so many things even better.
But at what cost? This needs to be analysed well by everyone before joining the wagon – if you are ready to pay any cost including health, wealth, family, career then yes please do try this. It is a RISK/GAMBLE – how well you will come out from it is driven a lot by your personal credentials.

Startups just should not aim to get bigger with stories and words, words, words. That is all the fancy stuff that needs to be ignored even by the puniest minds.

Startups become companies when they are more mature, sustainable, process oriented, long lasting, consistent and above all encompassing.Their decisions impact economy and societies at large – this fact can not be ignored and when startups start behaving in this acceptable fashion they shall be deemed SUCCESSFUL.

Right now including the biggies are just trying to be one!

My concern though 0 with the founders (as they will definitely end up earning loads), is a lot for the crowd who are getting pulled towards it simply for words like startup, e-commerce, etc. Time to Open Your eyes!

I fall into the venn space of 20% of first and 80% of second stage.. which gives me a lot of ownership to execute ideas..
My btech degree with retail sales (offline+online) experience tends to fulfill this well.. what my work experience though does not bring into light is my creative bend of mind which I think is my USP to blend a learning from painting class into e-commerce space to turn into something bigger..

I wish to become more significant in this space & provide more easy to adapt solutions for Indian consumers (especially in rural & tier 2/3 cities) along with ensuring the execution..

Filtering out people who don’t seem to believe in you.. who you don’t seem to get along well with, despite effort gives a lot of clarity in life & helps in shaping it a lot more suitable to your overall aim of being a happier & calmer person!
I don’t mean to have people who tend to be yes-men (or women), I believe to have people who inspire you to be better, you speak for themselves but happen to touch a chord base with you and most importantly who make the going through tough times easier.

In past 6 months I believe, I have tried to act a lot more stubborn by refusing to take anything (mostly harsh words) which seems to be unacceptable to me. My parents feel it has a lot to do with hormonal issues but I feel it has to do everything with my determination to becoming more self sufficient & independent about my approach! I don’t feel guilty about it somehow..

Getting rid of a lot of people (relatives and some friends) who seemed to stake control in my life wrongly seems to be the best decision so far..
I don’t know exactly how my destination will turn out to be but I am quite sure for now I feel a lot more free & empowered with this action..

I would rather have few but those who believe in me & my methods than those who enjoy showing me lesser..

I associate alot of my life to things & people around me like everybody else. However the difference in my case is a dash bit more of attachment, emotional, sentimental value..
So as a case I associate alot of my good or bad times with the houses I have stayed in.. The first one is the IFFCO quarters that my father got after his posting.. it was a small cozy apartment of 2 bedrooms, 1 hall, kitchen, bathroom, verandah, garden, garage, kitchen garden separate. I have all my childhood memories from this place! So much so that all my dreams associated with home are also visualized here only.. I see my Dadi in my dreams here only..

Next was the second township house I lived in Ahmedabad with my family & however bigger it was – I associate it with alot of changes it brought in our family & my growing up years! Next was hostel for 2 years that I don’t associate living with, just experiencing & surviving while learning! Then comes the Bombay home in Andheri that I hated initially but happened to like in the latter part thanks to alot of good times spent with my friends, family there! Hubli home was more a makeshift temporary arrangement for 6 mths that never turned into a home but yeah it was cozy, nice, breezy & I quite liked it..

Post coming to Delhi, the first home in Saket I found was disdained by one & all though sufficient for me but it did not seem appealing 🙂 The current house set up has taken well to me so far and have been able to find some kinda stability with it & hence myself.. Life seems likeable & I quite like coming here & spending my time…I like inviting my family here & living with them – the bright market behind has a very important role to play 🙂

Ecommerce is an exciting place to be.. so we keep hearing and reading about in newspapers.. They have funny, interesting, competitive tales to tell and most importantly new stories to tell on an everyday basis..

So when I started working with Snapdeal, I was hoping it will be an exciting place to be..with new, young people, creative ideas..

6th october 2014 i.e. today proved to be that one day where I got to experience all of that and alot more thanks to the hooplah created by flipkart around bigbillionday!! What a sham they created for themselves and an awesome opportunity for us and Amazon 🙂 Flipkart is great that ways – very magnanimous with its marketing. It helps others more with it than themselves 🙂

Day started around 6AM and it was all bang bang from there in terms of offers, product varieties, gross value earning per hour, products sold every hour, etc. etc.
What is being done by Myntra, what is being done by Jabong, What is Amazon planning..!!

By 9AM it was clear that we are doing something right…by 11 AM, it was clear that Flipkart site was not working plus most of the items were out of stock.. social media was buzz with Flopkart, it being another CAG scam, etc. etc.
By afternoon, we understood that we are winning and Amazon is benefitting too.. Flipkart stopped its offers by 3pm and then we soared even better…

By the end of day, we had done fantastically well however we also heard from media that Flipkart did similar numbers (hard to believe) but we do wonder if Flipkart planned this sale for us or themselves 😛
(Their inventory management team definitely needs a wake up call :P)